APR! J-l§ 
possible machine. There should be a law to 
keep such fellows from marrying. They are 
about, sure to bring their families to ruin. 
Ulster Co., X, Y. J. H.B. 
R. N.-Y.—What a world this would bo if 
we could all have the laws we think just. 
Perpetual motion will be invented by the 
genius who can lift himself high in the air by 
tuggiugathis own boot-straps and never by 
anybody else. The successful man in any 
calling, is the one who sticks closely to his 
own business, and bas nothing whatever to do 
with distracting avocations. 
Dog-Powers. —I wish some of the readers of 
the Rural who are using dog or sheep powers 
would tell us if such machines really pay. 
We are often told that by these means the lazy 
dog or the old ram can be made to do the 
churning,or supply power for running a wash¬ 
ing machine. There are hundreds of fat and 
lazy dogs around here, and sheep in plenty, 
but not a single dog-power in use. My own 
experience—with one dog—would show me 
that the training and watching of the animal 
would come to about as much as the power 
was worth. I would like to hear from those 
who have really succeeded in getting profita¬ 
ble work out of a dog. How did they do it? 
Lenawee Co., Mich. c. H. W. 
Lightning Rod Sharps.— The lightning 
rod sharps have been seen in this part of the 
land. Those who deal with them should look 
out. Theirs if a bad swindle. Give them no 
quarter. I can't describe their maufeuvres 
any better than the Eye-Opener bas done in 
the Rural of June 19, 1886. 1 was saved 
from becoming their victim only this week by 
the Eye-Opener's timely warning. Thanks to 
the grand old Rural! May it ever prosper, 
and have a welcome with all honest people, 
and continue to raise a warning voice against 
all such rascality. D. A. 
Titusvills, N. J. 
ALFALFA IN COLORADO. 
When ready to cut; when to sow; irrina¬ 
tion; yield; quantity of seed; curing; as 
stock feed; caught by frost. 
Alfalfa is better known in the East by its 
true name, Lucerne. Alfalfa is the Spanish 
name, and we never hear it called by any 
other here To the Western ranchman it is a 
great boon. Its wonderful growth makes it 
possible for him to keep cattle and swine in 
great numbers, whereas without it compara¬ 
tively little business could be done. The sec¬ 
ond year after it is seeded it is always ready 
to cut three times in a season, if properly ir¬ 
rigated. Last season we might have had a 
fourth cutting, but considered it more profit¬ 
able to herd our cows upon it. 
I have more than 100 acres of ground well 
seeded to Alfalfa. Sixty-five acres were 
sown last spring. In sowing Alfalln care has 
to be taken about late frosts. If the ground 
is wet and freezes when the little seedling has 
only two leaves, the plant will be ruined; if 
the third leaf is opened it will survive a frost. 
Hard frosts do not hurt the old growth in the 
fall. In seeding last spring I waited till dan¬ 
ger from frost was over, and met with a 
trouble nearly as much to be feared—namely, 
a drought. Some of the uewly sowed land had 
to be irrigated. When irrigation has to be re¬ 
sorted to, results arc never satisfactory: the 
flooded ground bakes as it dries, and the tiny 
sprout has Jianl work to force itself out, if it 
ever comes. The weeds grow rapidly, and 
are somewhat of an advantage as they shel¬ 
ter the young plants. The first, cutting of 
weeds and a little Alfalfa is worth curing for 
the cattle to pick over in the winter. It 
should be cut for another reason: so far the 
young plant has grown straight ana tall: af¬ 
ter it is cut it will stool out and dozens of 
stems will take the place of the first one, anil 
good-bje to the weeds then—not one will find 
room to show its head on a well-seeded 
patch. There will be a good cutting of Al¬ 
falfa after the weeds are taken off the first 
year. 
With us, any land that can be irrigated is 
suitable for the growth of Alfalfa, provided 
water cannot staud upon it. If standing 
water freezes on Alfalfa it is sure to kill it 
out. It has been claimed that Alfalfa will 
grow upon the plains beyond the reach of 
irrigation. It may live if it can be induced 
to come up under such circumstances; but 
when it suffers for water it does not grow 
more than five inches high before it blossoms 
out and goes to seed; whereas if it is well 
irrigated, it quickly grows over two feet in 
high before it blossoms, when it is ready 
to cut. 
The roots run far into the ground; hence 
it is thought it might thrive away from irri¬ 
gation. Some of our land is difficult to irri¬ 
gate well, aud there one can readily see the 
difference between the effects of plenty of 
water and none at all. Sometimes a strip will 
be all purple with blossoms and only a few 
inches high; while on either side of it, the 
green grass is nearly as many feet tall as that 
is inches. If Alfalfa is not thickly seeded, the 
stems will grow large and woody. When the 
seed cost eighteen cents a pound, some 
thought they could not afford to use more 
than fifteen poutids to the acre; but our farm¬ 
ers are raising t he seed quite extensively now, 
and eight pounds ?an be bought tor one dollar, 
so they have learned to use about 25 non nils to 
the acre. Alfalfa, like clover, will not bear 
much handling in curing. The leaves fall off too 
readily. As soon as it is wilted it is made 
into bunches and left without tossing about, 
until it is ready to stack, which will be in 
three or four days in our bright sunshine. 
Treated in this way, it keeps its fresh, greeu 
appearance, aud is greatly relished by the ani¬ 
mals to which it is fed. When milch cows 
are takeu from other hay and fed on Alfalfa, 
it is noticeable that their butter improves in 
color and flavor also. Care has to be exer¬ 
cised in feeding it. The animals are accus¬ 
tomed to the change of feed gradually. When 
they are allowed to fill themselves suddenly— 
especially when green—some of them may 
bloat, and if not relieved shortly, will die. 
The average yield per acre on our old Alfalfa 
fields has been 1% ton at each cutting, mak¬ 
ing 4 V, tons i>er acre each season. Some of 
the best irrigated spots have yielded eight tons 
to the acre. I had my first cutting iu June; 
the second in August; the third the first 
week in September. Early in October it was 
about eight inches high aud a herd of 100 cows 
were turned upon it twice a day for 20 min¬ 
utes at a Lime: gradually their time of grazing 
was extended to an hour. They were not al¬ 
lowed to drink immediately before or after 
being herded there, as it is thought they are 
mor° likely to bloat if they are allowed to do 
so. It has been said that swine will fatten 
upon it, but this theory is nearly exploded. 
Swine like it, and can live upon it, but some¬ 
thing more is needed to make them fat. It is 
excellent feed for horses. I should state that 
since the last cutting no water could he had to 
irrigate the Alfalfa. 
The last growth was made without the 
ground being wet, except by one nr two light 
showers. With plenty of water faithfully ap¬ 
plied, a fourth cutting equal to any of the 
others might have been secured. There is a 
difficulty in curing the hay so late in the sea¬ 
son,for not infrequently the October hay cooks 
are well sprinkled with snow in this altitude. 
My old Alfalfa grows upon a hill-side. Last 
spring ten acres of it looked completely dead, 
when all around ir the grass was fast, growing 
green. After a lew weeks, aud just before I 
was ready to plow it up to re-seed, it began to 
grow; am 11 decided that when the snow melted 
some time in the winter it must have frozen and 
killed the tops of the Alfalfa roots, and that it 
sprouted lower down in the ground aud so was 
longer showing green. I dug down and found 
the tops of the roots dead, and supposed it was 
all dead. s. e. h. 
Greeley, Col. 
WIRE-WORMS AND SCAB IN POTATOES. 
f 
Is it really wire-worms that do the mis¬ 
chief? I have never noticed here, that they 
injure potatoes. What we call the wire- 
worm here is a worm about 1 ! 5 inch long, of 
a dark orange color and of firm texture. It is 
very destructive to the corn crop. It enters 
the stalk just below the ground aud passes up¬ 
ward, eating out the heart. The large, white 
grub, brown grub and wire-worm are the great 
pests of the corn crop, yet are quite easily 
held in check by throwing a handful of gas- 
lime ou the top of the hill after planting mid 
covering the corn. I think they dislike the 
odor of the gas lime. I think they could be 
driven out of potato fields by sprinkling gas 
lime along the rows, say a good handful to 
about five feet of row, after covering the 
potatoes. . 1 . p. 
Kingston, N. J. 
R. n. v.—It seems evident that our friend 
has not described the wire-worm at all. The 
insect he speaks of is the cut-worm. The 
wire-worms which our potato growers com¬ 
plain about are subterranean feeders, which 
feed upon the roots of vegetation. The names 
of these various insects, cut-worms and wire- 
worms, are badly mixed up. Iu some locali¬ 
ties, cut-worms arc called wire-worms, and in 
others, both are called by the same name. To 
this contusion is partially due the fact that 
remedial measures are not more generally 
known, Some farmer findu a remedy for w hat 
are known in his neighborhood as cut-worms. 
Another farmer tries it on land infested with 
what he calls cut-worms, but which may be 
wire-worms, and makes a failure. It is the 
False Wire-worm, lulus, of the myriapod sub¬ 
class, that we have found infesting scabby 
potatoes. 
— — »«» 
“Stinginess in Seeding.''— In the Rural 
of March 19, “H. A. IV.” considers one-half 
bushel of seed, equal parts clover and Timo¬ 
thy, mixed, none too much seed for an acre. 
He gives us an instance of what he calls “ex¬ 
travagant seediug” and the results. He does 
not say whether they were in every way satis¬ 
factory. .It would seem that it must have 
been rather hard on the wheat. He does uot 
tell us that he continues to repeat the experi¬ 
ment. Now I have had results that were 
quite satisfactory to me with less than one- 
fifth of that amount of seed—eight quarts 
only—clover and Timothy iu equal’parts. I 
should not care to swap with him without 
first seeing his loads. “One swallow does not 
make a summer.” s. R. 
Marion, N. Y. 
Hat is as good a crop as we can raise here. 
It pays as well as any. To make money at it 
two things are absolutely necessary—there 
must be a good body to the meadows, and we 
must keep that body filled up. We get. the 
body by taking good, strong soil, manuring it 
well, preparing it carefully and using plenty 
of seed. We top-dress meadows regularly. 
Grass needs manure the same as any other 
crop. We feed sheep through the winter. 
These work up all our coarse fodder and give 
us many tons of spleudid mauure. ,r. j. M. 
SMALL CHEESE FOR FAMILY CON¬ 
SUMPTION. 
HENRY STEWART. ’ 
Evils of cheese adulteration; making and 
using rennet; systems of cheese-making; 
breaking up the cheese; pressing; curing; 
■marketing. 
Cheese is the cheapest form of nitrogenous 
human food, oue pound of cheese having twice 
as much nutriment in it as two pounds of beef 
free from bona Unfortunately, the dairy 
interest bas become so much demoralized by 
the contamination of oleomargarine, lard oil, 
cotton-seed oil or other fraudulent products, 
that not only have the leading dairy authori¬ 
ties openly declared that no good cheese can 
be procured in the United States, but the 
commission-men are alarmed and fear the loss 
of their markets, which are being occupied by 
the more honest Canadiau dairymen. As 
cheese is a most desirable article of domestic 
consumption, anil as the cheese on the market 
is really uot safe for use by mothers, because 
of the medicinal character of the cotton seed 
oil frequently used to adulterate it, and no 
one cares to eat cheese “doctored” with very 
questionable fats in the shape of oleomarga¬ 
rine oil and lard (and lard is now openly ad¬ 
mitted to be adulterated with cotton-seed oil), 
the only thing to be done is for families who 
are at all scrupulous in regard to the purity 
noil hcalthfulness of their food, to make their 
own cheese. This they may do very easily by 
the following process:— 
Any quantity of milk, from 100 pounds up¬ 
wards, may be used. The night’s milk may 
be set in a cool place Rtid -stirred frequently 
up to the latest opportunity. In the morning 
this milk is skimmed and put in tin pails in a 
tub of hot water, to get warmed up to 1(H) 
degrees. The morning's milk is brought in 
fresh and warm, and is at once mixed with 
the warmed milk, which is reduced to 90 de¬ 
grees by this mixture. The mixed milk is put 
into a clean wash-tub and the rennet is added. 
The rennet is made by steeping a piece of the 
dried stomach of a calf iu worm water and 
adding salt. The exact quantity required for 
100 pounds of millc is 60 grains, or one-eighth 
of an ounce of the dry stomach in 2}4 ouuees 
of water, at 70 degrees^ for 24 hours for milk 
at 90 degrees. About one dram, or a taa- 
spoouful, of salt is added for this quantity. 
When the rennet is added the milk is well 
stirred to thoroughly mix the rennet, and the 
tub is covered with a cloth to retain the heat- 
This quuutity of rennet is enough to make the 
curd iu an hour. More rennet will make a 
hard, dry cheese, aud so will a higher temper¬ 
ature, either of these being equivalent in effect 
to the other. A low temperature and a small 
quantity of rennet are also equivalent to or eh 
other iu producing a soft, mellow cheese which 
cures in the best manner and develops a 
meaty, rich flavor. 
In one hour the curd is set. It is now cut 
with a long-bladed knife or a blade made of a 
strip of hoop iron set in a buudlo and ground 
to a sharp edge. The curd is cut in straight, 
perpendicular slices, one inch thick, and then 
crosswise one inch apart. This causes the 
whey to separate and the curd to shrink. 
Just here is the point where the various meth¬ 
ods of making cheese separate. By the Ched¬ 
dar system, the whey is dipped off aud heated 
to 150 or 180 degrees and is poured back on 
the curd, which is thus heated up to 100 de¬ 
grees ami is kept so huated until a piece taken 
between the teeth “squeaks” when it is chew¬ 
ed, or when -touched to a hot iron the curd 
draws out in strings several inches in length. 
The other system dispenses with this heating 
and the curd is left in the whey until it is firm 
enough to be lifted up in the hand without 
falling apart or losing its shape, when it is 
ready for breaking up, salting and putting in 
the press. 
When the curd is ready, the whey is all 
drained off bv tilting the tub and breaking up 
the eurd with the bauds. In the Cheddar sys¬ 
tem the curd is drained nml broken up while 
still warm, and is left in a heap to become 
slightly acid. As soon as the aeid is apparent 
to the taste, the curd is again broken up by 
the hands quite fine, salted in the proportion 
of twp per cent, of fine dairy salt, and put into 
the hoop and the press. In the other method 
the curd is not left to sour but is broken up, 
salted and put. into the hoop. The hoop is 
made of thin ash or spruce board, and for 100 
pounds of milk or 10 pounds of cheese maybe 
eight inches in diameter and 10 inches deep. 
The curd is pressed in the hoop by the hands, 
a little at a time, to get it Arm and solid, and 
a loose head is put in with a block upon it. 
The cheese is then put under the press. 
The press is a frame or bench haviug an up¬ 
right post at one end in which is pivoted a 
long lever. The cheese is put under this lever 
near the pivoted end and a weight is hung 
upon the other end, so as to got a moderate 
pressure upon the cheese. A folded cloth is 
usually put ou the bench under the cheese to 
absorb the whey which is pressed slowly out 
of the cheese. For a 10-pound cheese and a 10- 
foot lever a 10-pound weight would be enough 
for the end of the lever. As soou as the cheese 
is firm enough to be handled, it is taken from 
the press, rubbed with butter and placed in a 
cool, dry cellar on a shelf to cure. It is 
turned on the other end daily for a month and 
if mold gathers on it, this is scraped and 
wiped off aud the cheese is greased again. 
With six cows giving seven quarts each a 
10-pound cheese may be made daily. This 
size is very convenient and with more cows 
and milk it is still a desirable size and several 
of suen cheeses can be made and pressed at 
one time by ranging the hoops in a line, rest¬ 
ing a board upon the blocks and pressing with 
the lever upon a block laid Upon the board. 
The weight on the lever should be increased 
in proportion to the number of cheeses. 
Cheeses of this size aud of good quality aud 
purity could be sold with the greatest ease. 
They are of such a size as to be consumed 
while fresh and in the best condition, aud, 
what is very important, any person can easily 
carry one home from a store, so that there is 
no objection to purchasing them on aecountof 
difficulty in getting oue home. The accom¬ 
modation of the purchasers is a point to bo 
well studied by all producers. If I were in 
the business of making cheese for family use, 
I would have thin, light wooden or straw- 
board boxes in which a cheese would fit nicely 
and it should have a ueat bundle aud be la¬ 
beled with with my name ufid the name of the 
farm, and branded “Pure, Whole-milk Cheese 
for Family Use,” just, as I have had similar 
pails for packing ray butter in, and they sold 
the butter for at least 20 cents a pound more 
than it would bring iu ordinary tubs. But of 
all the ways of making cheese for home use 
this is one of the easiest and the best. 
iiJjC JWih 
SPRING WORK WITH POULTRY. 
Now that the rigors of winter are somewhat 
relaxed aud the earth has east off her white 
mantle, hens are very busy peeping into every 
nook aud corner, prating, with joyful anticipa¬ 
tions, of coming events; and while warming 
up the enthusiasm of their keeper, they seem 
to be asking for special care and attention. 
During this interesting season their liege lords 
pay very strict obedience to nil their wants 
and whims, and strut around them with con¬ 
sequential airs that are uot a little amusing to 
the observer. 
The true method of managing all kinds of 
stock is to take advantage of their nature and 
assist it to the advancement of their keeper’s 
interests. To induce a lieu to lay, let the nest 
be partly shaded. When she wants to sit, if 
you wish to remove her, do it at night and 
make her surroundings as nearly as possible 
like those of the nest she laid in. On a farm 
where there are many nooks aud comers, and 
where the farmer has some one to attend to 
his fowls, boxes may be put in a number of 
places, aud the fowls will select and lay, each 
in her favorite nest, and when the time for sit- 
